Individuals working on a tax return are much more likely to follow
a prompt they encounter while completing an online interview
(doing the work) to learn more about a specific IRS regulation
(accessing knowledge) than they would be to stop doing an online
interview in one system to go to a new Web site and search for an
IRS regulation that might turn out to be important. Most corporate
knowledge management systems, however, follow the latter model.
This is another area in which Pfizer has successfully innovated.
The Powerpath system at its global headquarters arranges all of the
information and applications needed for a process, such as strategic
planning, into a “pathway” that users can follow. For instance, a
product team leader working on his or her strategic plan can see the
timeline and steps required for a successful submission and can access
templates, guidelines, analytical applications, databases, and best-
practice examples needed at each step of the planning process. A sin-
gle password gives the product team leader access to everything he or
she needs to work on a complex project. As more of these pathways
are developed, communications associated with process changes
become dramatically easier—all that is necessary is to update the
pathway—and usage of resources both new and previously developed
has increased. Most important, significant amounts of time have
been freed up from administrative tasks to focus on strategic issues.
Recognizing the Value of Simple Affirmation
Where behavior change generates business value, there is often
more impact from affirmation and reinforcement than from dis-
covery of new information. One of the implicit assumptions of
many knowledge management initiatives is that if people acquire
the right information, it will translate into changed behavior and
improved performance. In some circumstances, this assumption
holds true, even where a company is focused on an issue like best-
practice sharing; however, in many cases the impact may result
more from the motivating effect of hearing about best practices
than from learning about fundamentally new ideas.
WHERE“MANAGINGKNOWLEDGE” GOESWRONG 35